Save Him
by CayshaGriffin
Summary: Can Bruce save the only part of the Joker that's saveable? Slash, Dark Knight/10 Things I Hate About You crossover.


Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, Joker or Patrick Verona.

A/N: This was made for a crossover challenge at my Batman/Joker livejournal community. I hope you guys like it.

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His name was Patrick Verona. A brown haired, green eyed, foul mouthed Aussie fresh out of college. A vocal activist against PETA, Prop 8, Pro-Life and anything else the 'established order' wanted to get riled up about. A judge of judgers, he liked to call himself. He smoked cheap cigarettes, smiled more then was healthy and liked to fuck by windows in broad daylight.

And as those ever active, nicotine stained fingers danced over his stomach, Bruce was already aching.

"You're incorrigible." He accused the man tangled in the the stolen sheets from the bed beside him.

"No," A drawling accent corrected. "I'm insatiable, there's a difference."

The smell of cloves tickled Bruce's nose as Patrick lit up in his usual post coital fashion, head propped on Bruce's stomach, lanky body stretched out vertically to his bed partner. It always made Patrick look like a basking cat, especially when they ended up by the windows. Gotham spread out beneath them while Patrick ate up the sunlight as if he only ever found its generous rays here.

"Besides," Patrick continued, tapping his cigarette into a crystal ashtray set on his chest. "It's not my fault you're so fuckable."

Bruce snorted. "Ever the eloquent lover." He quipped.

Green eyes glared up at him. "For fucks sake, Wayne, grow a fucking pair. You're not a chick."

Bruce smirked and Patrick nestled his head into Bruce's stomach like an unfluffed pillow. He always did this after Bruce used any kind of endearment or title. A sharp retort about acting like a man then a very unmanly demand for attention by the accuser. Bruce always obliged, this time by repeatedly running his fingers through Patrick's hair as he felt the other man melt into the touch with an appreciative groan.

Bruce often blamed it on Patrick's inexperience. Not when it came to sex, they were both new to the whole male partner thing. No, it was the way Patrick acted pre and post sex. Always darting back and forth between prickly and needy and then right back again.

He knew Patrick had been with a steady girlfriend since high school until halfway through college when it ended. Patrick never explained, Bruce never asked. But he had a sneaking suspicion the ready to fight attitude was from that past relationship. Bruce was the first steady thing Patrick had managed to sustain since then and they'd made it last for four months. So far it was working for the both of them, and Patrick was getting better at expressing what he wanted the first time instead of making Bruce follow a breadcrumb trail of clues.

When it came to sex they'd both been quick and eager studies. But it was Verona who'd learned the tricks that dragged indecent noises from Gotham's playboy. Like it or not, Patrick had become Bruce's own personal brand of heroin, with a fair amount of ectasy mixed in. And like any good drug, it made Bruce stupid at times. It made him forget how this relationship had started.

Bruce let his hand cup Patrick's jaw and tried to pull the other man up into a kiss. And it really didn't take too much urging. His thumb dragged over a full bottom lip and Patrick suddenly pulled away.

"Hold on, I need to take a piss." He said, by eloquent explanation once more and headed for the bathroom.

Bruce watched Patrick's bare backside, and the misery's tale cut into his body. Old scars and track marks marring his skin in uneven patterns. Bruce didn't know how much longer he could stay stupid.

_'Can you keep a secret, Bruce?'_

Bruce rubbed at his eyes and almost prayed the sun would go down so he'd have a decent excuse to leave before Patrick came back.

_'Can you keep it safe?'_

How much longer could he stay silent?

_'You can't ask me to do this.'_

_'If you love me, you will do it.'_

It was a cruel joke, but for once no one was laughing.

_'You knew I'd think he was you...You sent him to me knowing!'_

__

'He needs you more then I do.'

_'I need you!'_

He heard Patrick come out of the bathroom and soon he was covered by a warm body intent on dragging him down into a lust drugged bliss. Even as he returned the lusty kisses and moaning touches, he saw a garishly painted doppleganger pleading his case in this same room the first night he'd spent with Patrick.

_'What happened to him?'_

Bruce ran his hands over the scarred skin as if he could soothe away the blemishes and Patrick cursed in his ear as his hips bucked against the vigilantes.

_'His girl messed him up. Patrick only ever used once in a while before it happened. But she found his once in a blue moon stash, she wanted to try it. She overdosed.'_

_'Why send him to me?'_

It was a battle of hands and mouths. Bruce would get the upper hand and try to flip the brunette only for Patrick to push him back down against the blankets and bite down on his shoulder. Bruce bucked and grasped the other mans upper arms. The fire was there in Patrick, so bright and ravenous it nearly consumed him. It had taken months to rebuild that pyre in the younger man. The battle continued until Patrick rolled Bruce onto his back and straddled him and Bruce gave in to the others wants.

There was a momentary flash in those green eyes as he saw something in Bruce's eyes. Their mutual pain, their mutual lie. Patrick bolted and Bruce went after him.

_'Because you can save him, Bats.'_

Bruce cut him off at the bedroom door and wrestled him to the ground. Patrick fought and bit. But he was too weak from the fights he got into at night, the drug rehabilitation Bruce had made him enroll in. And he'd never had his brother's unique taste for pain.

"You sick fuckers! You're his fucking pet Bat!" Patrick shouted angrily as he struggled. But it was the hurt under the anger that cut Bruce.

"Patrick..."

"No! I want to hear you fucking deny it Bruce! Deny it!" The moppy haired brunette challenged, stopping his struggling long enough to hear Bruce's answer.

He tried to kiss the other man rather then answer, but jerked away a moment later with a bleeding lip. His blood on Patrick's mouth.

"What did you want, Bruce?! A safer fucking version of him?!"

Bruce's face softened.

_'What if I can't save him?'_

He suddenly gathered Patrick up into his arms and simply held him. Patrick fought.

_'Don't let him become me.'_

Bruce held on until the fighting stopped and the body in his arms went slack. A balled fist twitching uncertainly against his arm before the fingers uncurled and went slack as well.

_'What do I get out of this?'_

_'The only part of me that's still saveable.'_

Those sinewy arms wrapped around Bruce for some kind of anchor as Patrick began to shake. The unshed tears for a love lost finally falling on Bruce's shoulder.

"Kat..."

Bruce held on as Patrick cried. He never planned on letting go of the love he'd found.

_'And what about you?'_

_'Oh, you know...I still have Batman.'_

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_P.S. Reviews are love. X3_


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